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Are you tired of articles written by first sergeants and chiefs informing you about the importance of wearing your fleece right, or how to wear your hat with your uniform, and how those gloves are only authorized to be worn on Wednesday after 7 p.m.?
Good news, I am not going to bore you with why it is important to wear your uniform correctly. I want to talk to you about how great we are despite the media perception we do nothing but destroy things.
Do you know why this is now the perception of the Air Force? Some of you will think it is because of the Huffington Post article or maybe the “Invisible War”
video. I would argue it is because we are so good at everything else we do.
You want proof of this? My former wing commander at Aviano Air Base, then Brig. Gen. R. Michael Worden, used to say, “Our Air Force is expected to win every war 100-0.” Do you think that is a fair expectation? Probably not, but I think we do a great job of meeting that expectation.
You want further proof? How about this? The U.S. government is looking to find a way to combat suicides. Guess what model the National Strategy for Suicide prevention is looking at? You guessed it. The U.S. Air Force. Why?
Because you make sure you are taking care of your wingmen everyday — those wingmen who are dealing with difficult issues. Once again, we are pretty darn good.
How about this little fun fact? In 1993, when I joined the Air Force, we were roughly twice the size we are currently.
Now, we are in Afghanistan, fighting terrorism in Africa, providing training to other developing countries, and fighting a seemingly never-ending battle with funds to keep our home station operations moving, and we still continue to make the mission happen wherever we are.
These are all big Air Force things. What do we do here? Let’s see, we move hundreds of thousands of passengers and cargo safely and securely through this air base every year.
We have a first-rate medical group that takes care of the largest population of military members outside the U.S. We have first-rate dining facilities, fitness centers and USO shows. Whether it is fixing and launching aircraft, defenders protecting the base or our logisticians, making sure we have the proper equipment and supplies to do the mission, we get it done safely and properly every day.
The bottom line is despite what the media says, or the fact we often focus on all the negative stuff that happens, keep your head up, because we are awesome at being awesome!
